For once we’re having a day when the sun shines, no wind and after the ice cold morning a relatively warm day and I’m not at work 🙂 Also a low pressure with rain and possibly snow is slowly entering the country and it looks like it’ll miss us here 🙂 Something must be wrong and in one way or the other I’m sure I’ll have to pay for it 🙂 🙂
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We walked down to the creek early this morning and even saw a few deer. Nova and Malkolm walks really good when leashed but Alma has after all that has happened here gone back to being impossible. She whines and shouts plus pulling the leash all the time. It hasn’t been easy for her losing her best friend like that and now when Malkolm is here being over protective.
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He’s fascinated by the creek and its running water 🙂
Today I wondered where she was because she hadn’t been indoors for quite some time. So I went out through the kitchen door and it wasn’t until I walked over to the other side of the cottage when I heard her barking like insane 🙂 She was down by the now rather big lake behind the garage so the sound couldn’t really reach the cottage. She was probably defending us towards something horrible like deer or pheasants 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it could have been wild hogs too and she was smart enough to not trying to reach what ever it was because then she would have become wet and she really doesn’t like that 🙂 🙂
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Later on we went out to the bog and she was just as impossible then as she had been in the morning. I do hope she calms down when Malkolm gets bigger and doesn’t need her protection but I doubt that 🙂 Otherwise it has been a calm and nice day. I’ll need to bake some bread though but the day is still young and there’s plenty of time to do that. I could also start with the laundry but I really don’t feel like doing that 🙂 🙂
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The lake behind the garage is getting bigger and bigger, normally it’s a swamp there 🙂
The dogs are sleeping and I really would like to join them but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep at all tonight if I did that 🙂 I would have liked to start doing things in the garden but the nights will stay below freezing so no use in doing that, I could mow the lawn though because when nothing else is growing the lawn sure does 🙂 I have to put the new lawn mower together first though so bread baking it is 🙂
Chaffinches have arrived at the feeder with sunflower seeds in it. Some stay here over winter but most fly south. Now when they return the forest has changed and they need easy to get food until the insects starts to hatch. I’ve seen the second butterfly for this year today by the way.
Winter has come back but it won’t stay for long. Snow fell yesterday but not more than a centimeter (two fifths of an inch) so most of it melted away since we have had sunshine all day long 🙂 Now there’s snow in places where the sun couldn’t reach it.
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The night was a cold and so will the coming nights so I guess that we’ll have snow on the ground until Wednesday comes with warmer weather. Now the Cranes are so many by the lake that I can hear them when I go out in the early morning. It’s the sound of spring 🙂
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I have so little laundry that I skip to do it today but I have made dinner for next week and I’ve baked a bread. I could only find frozen gluten free bread in the german grocery store and it wasn’t a yummy kind but it worked really good when toasted. So I tried a new recipe today but had to have it in the oven for much longer time because it had a hard time to be baked all the way through, so I guess I won’t try that one again 🙂 🙂
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I was told I should talk with the optician with an referral to an eye specialist about the cataract, so I’ll have a talk with them when I get my new glasses on Maundy Thursday. Better to be early than late. Not much else has happened this weekend beside me sowing some seeds that I have had in the fridge in damp paper towels in plastic bags. I filled up an old balcony flower box and placed another broken one over it so no birds or mice can reach them. Also I bought another Ginkgo tree that I planted in an big old clay pot but that one I need to have indoors until it’s farther between rather cold nights than it is now.
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It is time to watch Biathlon on tv, the season is ending and the last competitions is held in Canada so for once I’ve had all mornings free to do other things 🙂
This hasn’t been the best of weeks for five people at work. The economy is bad over here and we don’t have as much to do as we used to so on Monday we were told that the evening shift would stop but that we all would start working day shift instead.
We were told that we would get info about it already the same evening. That didn’t happen but we were told we most likely would get the info on Tuesday or more likely on Wednesday but that didn’t happen either so of course we understood that it must be more serious than that. So yesterday we finally got the info and they have to let five people go. I’ve been working there for so long so there was never any risk that I would have to leave. The rules here is that last one in is first one out when people have to leave. They can do some exceptions when it comes to competence and since I’ve been working there for almost 17 years now I do have lots of competence.                                                         ...
I feel so sorry for those who has to leave because this is happening all over the country right now. There is however a light at the end of the tunnel because the inflation is going down and they haven’t risen the the loan interest and will most likely lower it in late spring and when people see at least the interest rate going down they will feel hopeful for the future and start to spend money again, so perhaps they will return to work before summer starts (well it starts quite late here to be honest but it will start even if it doesn’t feel like that right now).
We’ve had lots of snow falling lately, light fluffy snow that is impossible to get a grip in while walking 🙂 🙂 and we’ll get a bit more than three inches next Monday if they’re guessing it right. The fun thing is that it will start to melt away again already on Tuesday 🙂 🙂 Nights will be chilly though so once again we’ll have slippery icy roads that makes it exiting to drive to and from work again. I’ll stop working at five pm Mondays to Thursdays and four pm on Fridays, crappy hours to be honest but way better than the ones I have so I’m not complaining.
Today I woke up to nasty cold but sunny weather and we went out for a walk as soon as we woke up. I couldn’t feel any wind blowing, unusual since we seem to have a constant storm blowing here otherwise. Nova is usually the first one to want to take a walk but today she preferred to stay in my bed, I can fully understand her because she is after all 17.5 years old now. I did worry for a while that something was wrong with her because she slept really heavy and didn’t eat especially much. The afternoon meal however was gulped down so I guess it is the changing of when we sleep and eat once again that disturbed her. Now they’ve been used to eat after noon and around three am and suddenly we’re going back to normal hours again.
The swamp behind my garage is now a little lake instead.More and more birds have realized that they can get an entire peanut if they go in to the feeder 🙂
So even if I finally get to go up early in the mornings like I’ve always had it still is difficult to change back but perhaps I finally will get a good nights sleep again, haven’t had that since my christmas vacation. Today however have been a day of tiredness. I baked a bread and while waiting for it to be ready I fell asleep in my recliner, with Albin sleeping on my stomach 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had set the timer but didn’t understand what it meant when I woke up 🙂 🙂 Took around five minutes until I remembered that I had the bread in the oven 🙂 Turns out that it was a perfect time for the bread to stay in the oven, I must remember that till next time 🙂
The first skein (or wedge or team) of Canada geese in the sky. I’ve learned that a bunch of geese in the water is called a gaggle of geese but that it changes when they either flies above the water surface and again when they fly high over the water. Sometimes they just make the english language a bit too tricky 🙂 🙂 Especially when a flock of geese also is ok to use 🙂
You know You’ve been disconnected from the world by working the evening shift when You get surprised that the Swedish parts of the European Song Contests starts tonight 🙂 It is after all the biggest talent show we have here (well some artists are well known and experienced but quite a lot of them are mostly known from sites like Ticktock or YouTube)In this country 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Another storm is passing by and I would have been much more tired of this wind if it hadn’t brought warmer weather at the same time. The winds just never stops blowing even though it was a bit calmer yesterday in the morning when we had our morning walk, After that the wind came back and we even had some rain. Today was very different, a full blown storm but sunny and warm weather. I only wore a t-shirt and hoodie when we went out, must admit that it was too little to wear while walking in the open fields but just enough when walking out of winds reach. I always have to plan for how Alma pulls the leash and how I always have to hold against it, so normally I would sweat like a pig even if I walked totally naked in a blizzard 🙂 🙂 🙂 Lately though she has started to stay mostly calm and I do hope this is the beginning of how she’ll behave for the rest of her life 🙂 🙂 🙂
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We walked down to the creek, followed it up-stream and went back home via the gravel road in the forest. I never saw any animals but I know there were wild hogs nearby because we walked up wind to them and they do smell rather a lot 🙂 🙂 🙂 The wind was so strong that not even ravens were out playing in it and it needs a lot of wind to stop them doing that 🙂
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Still lots of ice where the sun can’t reach. I’m glad I have my studded boots!
I’ve started to check the seeds I’ve sown in damp paper towels and put in the fridge. Normally I only do that with seeds I want to keep an eye on because I have few or they’re hard to get. This time I had sowed columbines, I had already tossed out loads of columbine seeds in the garden but wanted to be sure that I at least have a few new ones just in case those outside wouldn’t make it. All seeds but the columbines were still dormant but six columbines had germinated, so I planted those in a pot, put a see through plastic bag over them and then took them down in to the cool cellar. The cool cellar will keep them calm so they don’t start to grow too fast and now at least I know I’ll have new columbines this year 🙂
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Also the sixth pawpaw seed that had started to germinate has now a small stalk and at first I thought something had gone wrong because it looked like it had broken at the top but I took a photo of it and magnified the photo and to my surprise there actually is a tiny, tiny new leaf growing at the top of that stalk 🙂 I’ve also checked the pawpaw “trees” (so small that I refuse to actually call them trees 🙂 🙂 ) and two are totally dead while the third seems to have made it through that nasty cold night we had when it dropped to -24C (-11,20F). The English Walnut, the peach tree, the apricot tree and the persimmon hybrid tree all seems to have managed to cope with that cold weather we’ve had 🙂 Plus I’ve checked the trees I have in the cool cellar and the most of those, pear, apricot, sea buckthorns, peaches and the small pawpaw seedlings that dropped their yellow leafs because I think they thought it was time to rest before spring all look really good as well.
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Well everything but a citrus plant looks rather well but winter isn’t over and it is soo easy to either over water or let them dry out too much when having anything indoors. Plus many plants are killed when they are brought out in spring, the shock of going outside can actually be too much for some plants, especially if they already have leafs growing, the sunshine will burn those leafs just like it would burn our skins.
The little pawpaw stalk. I had to magnify it a lot to be able too see that tiny little leaf at the top. It is so small that the camera couldn’t focus so I had to place a hand carved spoon made from cherry tree by myself for about 42? years ago 🙂The pawpaw outside is still alive despite that cold weather. It is well protected by a huge Hungarian lilac though.The hazelnut bush is ready for spring.Unfortunately another hazel I have believes that only because we now have a few days with warmer weather it’s ok to open up the leaf buds 🙂
I better get ready for that song contest now, it’s a few hours left before it starts but I’m pretty sure I’ll fall asleep while waiting for it to start 🙂 🙂 🙂 Also yesterday I heard from a work friend that I’ll be informed on Monday that I’ll have new working hours, any other hours but the ones I have will be better and You’ll know next Friday.
I try to scare away the woodpecker as often as I can, the male one is easy but the female one is much tougher 🙂Field sparrows are plenty around the peanut feeder.It isn’t all peace and quiet between the different birds 🙂
Our painter at work managed to crack a lot of his ribs last weekend so guess who had to take his place while he is at home recovering? I truly hate that job and especially the heat that’s constant there because of the huge oven on one side of the painting box and the huge washing machine on the other side. The washing machine also adds humidity to it all making it even more nasty. Plus I wear the white overall that doesn’t breathe at all so it’s like walking in ones personal sauna all the time. I truly hate it!
I’m glad I didn’t have to drive anywhere today, usually one slides to the right and down again though and not to the left and down in to the cow pasture 🙂
Still I’m the only one that can do it and after fifteen years painting with powder paint I know what I’m doing. Side effects to the heat and personal sauna is leg cramps and lots of peeing since I drink loads of water all the time and I’m tired every second I’m awake. Working only four days a week doesn’t make it better at all since I’m napping away the Friday and still is really tired on Saturday. I think weekends would be better if we had more daylight, as it is now it still gets dark so early that I really can’t do anything outdoors, instead I mostly half sleep in front of the tv, yippee.
Today I woke up to a really nice and sunny morning, they said we wouldn’t get any sunshine today so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw that the sun was slowly rising behind the mountain 🙂 -) 🙂 I had to fill the bird feeders before we went out on our morning walk, the birds were sitting close to the feeders just waiting for me to wake up 🙂 After that we went out to the peninsula by the bog. No wind and sunshine made the walk really nice, I could even feel heat from the sun and I think that was the first time this year that happened.
I think these paw marks comes from Salmiak, very few other cats walk down this road normally.
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Not much snow left after this weeks rain but there was still some frozen snow on the ground in the forest. When everything else is quiet it sounds like small explosions when walking on frozen snow 🙂 🙂 so there wasn’t any chance what so ever to be able to see any wild animals today. I could have stayed all day (well at least for as long the sun still wasn’t covered by clouds) out on that peninsula. Back in the days with all the old dogs we quite often did stay out there for hours but today suddenly all the dogs wanted to go home so I guess a wolf might have been close to us or perhaps lots of wild hogs, the dogs don’t like them especially much either to be honest 🙂 🙂 🙂
So much water in the bog now that it almost looks like the old shallow lake they once dried out here.
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We’ve had our pancake Saturday, some of the laundry is done and we’ve also napped in front of the tv. All that is left to do today is to hope for that big lottery winning 🙂 🙂 🙂
This has not been the best of weeks, not the worst either to be honest but bad enough. Nasty cold at nights and a snow storm passing by. I’m not sure how much snow that fell but the storm strength wind also spread the snow that already was on the ground making huge snow drifts on the roads.
It doesn’t look that bad to be honest but that road is anything but even so in some placed there’s three feet of snow. Wind and snow really evens out the world.Looking here where the wind didn’t reach I would say that we didn’t get that much new snow.
I wasn’t even sure I would be able to even leave the village but unfortunately they came and plowed the roads just in time for me to leave for work 🙂 🙂 Not early enough for me to get the package I was waiting for though 🙂 🙂 To be honest I didn’t think they would be cruel enough to actually force the employees out on the roads in weather like that but suddenly I got a call where they driver said the package was here but she didn’t dare drive down my road since there was so much snow, so I had to walk up that road with snow up to my knees as best 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I was waiting for the new dog beds I had bought for the dog house. Alma always tear apart any protection I put up to cover the way out to the dog yard making it way too chilly in the dog house, so I ordered some dog beds called Dog-Igloos. Two smaller ones for Alma and Nova and one big for Alma. Two fitted in the dog hose and one will be placed in the garage where Nova prefers to stay while I’m at work. I do understand her because Alma can be a pain in the a..e to be honest. I know I shouldn’t have been either surprised or disappointed to see that Alma had destroyed the smaller one when I came home.
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On the other hand both she and Albin had managed to sleep together in the big one, now sure how but they’ve done that two nights in a row now 🙂 🙂 The third one will be placed in the garage but I have to figure out how to protect it from Alma so she doesn’t destroy that one too. I think it might be possible to repair the third one but I do need better things that needle and threads, I’ll check online if I can find something that would work, perhaps those needles they use when sewing leather (even though that would be a bit much to be honest, the Igloo is made from felt I think but needs to be streangthened before I try to fix it. Also she chewed off a few sticks made from glass fiber so I need something to replace those as well. That dog drives me insane sometimes 🙂
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This is the smaller Dog-Igloo, enough big for Nova or Albin. I have no idea how Alma and Albin managed to be together in the big one (a slight smaller than one yard wide) but they did 🙂 🙂 There was no space for the fluffy extra blankes though 🙂 🙂
Tomorrow will be the last cold and sunny day for a while because we’ll get above 0C (32F) degrees and both rain and snow now (and pretty strong winds again they say), so we better enjoy tomorrows walk because one never know when we’ll be able to enjoy another walk. We’ll be out on walks but we will perhaps not enjoy them in that weather 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thursday morning. On our way out to the island in the bog.
The weather this week has been really nice, lots of sunshine and no wind. I couldn’t enjoy it especially much though because the cold I had during the christmas vacation didn’t want to leave me. It has been an odd one. Sometimes I’ve felt rather fine just to minutes later freeze like a dog or boil like a kettle. Runny nose and lots of sneezings but thankfully less coughing. Also the throat couldn’t decide whether it should hurt or not so that has come and gone as well 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I have been on walks with the dogs though. Alma is in heat and she’s more annoying than usual, none of us can stand her for more than a few minutes at a time 🙂 🙂 🙂 She has been really annoying on our walks as well So at the moment she’s not the most popular girl here 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Our fox is very much alive thankfully, I managed to take photos of it in the cow pasture on the other side of the gravel road. The fun thing is that I didn’t see it while I took some photos on the frost covered trees in the pasture 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had the wrong telephoto lens on to be honest but then again if I had had the bigger one I might not have caught the fox at all.
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Today the weather sites first guessed that we would have fog in the morning, then they changed that to snow. So I wasn’t surprised that we had misty rain when I woke up, that changed to drizzle when we went out for our walk. Naturally it then turned to heavy rain for a short while to finally become snow. We did actually get fog too but well after noon. So I guess it would be hard to complain about those weather sites since we actually had both snow and fog plus the bonus rain 🙂 🙂 🙂
We walked down to the creek yesterday...
From now on it’ll get nasty cold again and I’m not happy about it. Alma removes all covers I hang in the opening at the dog house, so all warmth in there goes away. Really annoying! So now I’ve ordered three Dog-Igloos. One really big for her and two smaller for Alma and Albin. So when Alma has removed and obliterated the cover once again they still can be warm and cozy when they go inside their Igloos. Alma will of course try to get in to the smaller ones as well since why wouldn’t she so I can only hope that Albin wants to stay in the bigger one so she can stay there at the same time as well. They are so big that she can’t drag them outside but I guess she will try to do that anyway 🙂 🙂 🙂
Today we walked out to the peninsula by the bog...
All puppies and younger dogs tend to destroy anything that isn’t solid concrete, so especially things made from cloth will be teared in to zillions of pieces but I do hope she for once can stay away from destroying these Igloos, they were quite expensive. Then again, why would she.
The temperature had dropped down to -15C (5F) this morning and yes I complained a lot about it to the dogs. Then again I really shouldn’t complain that much because I just read about a man whose thermometer gave up after it showed -49,9C (-57,82F) last night 🙂 🙂 🙂 He said that he won’t drive to the store to get a new one just because he wants to know how cold it actually was and I do understand that, I would have frozen to death while walking a few meters to my car 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I lost the feelings in my fingers while I was swiping away the snow that covered my car this morning, after that I felt a lot, pain that is. Still no snow fell on my hands so it was just the cold air doing that to me. Today I went to my friend with the garden center. This time of year it is more or less empty with customers. Christmas is over (even though today and tomorrow is called Thirteenth day of christmas even and thirteenth day of Christmas day) and the christmas flowers are still ok. The only thing one survives on this time of year is funerals and it’s kind of sad to hope people will die just to make an income 🙂 🙂 🙂 I tend to visit just after the different seasons because one can talk without disturbing customers or being disturbed by them 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Since no one is buying christmas flowers now and it costs more than it gives back to save any of those flowers I could bring some of what they had left back with me home 🙂 So I came home with three Cymbidium hybrids, one Cambria hybrid with flowers that smells rather nicely, three Paphiopedilum hybrids (Venus slipper), all orchids. I also brought home two Himalayan Ceder trees (Cedrus Deodara). The ceder trees are almost possibly perhaps maybe hardy enough to survive here if I can find the most protected and warm spot I have in the garden. They are really beautiful so I’ll give it a try anyway.
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I was almost totally alone on the roads today so for once I could drive in the speed I wanted and take photos along the way. The most beautiful places are of course in places where it’s impossible to stop and take photos because the roads turn or its slightly up hill and a turn but I can at least show You some photos of what it looks on the way there. One town along the way but the rest is country side where houses and farm are few and far between.
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There are more photos but I’ll show You them tomorrow.
We also managed to have a walk before the sun set and went out to the bog. The snow was so cold that even Nova had cramps in her paws, can’t remember when that happened the last time. Albin gets it all the time when the snow is like it is today, light and fluffy and more like tiny ice sheets instead of snow. A few new tracks in the snow but something must have passed there before the last snow fell because all dogs were really interested in following a track I couldn’t see at all.
Lots of orchids 🙂This is the flower from the only Cymbidium hybrid that still has flowers, I have no idea if the other ones look the same.The small birds eat loads of peanuts and seeds now, so I stopped by a grocery store on my way home to buy more 🙂
Only two more days before it’s going back to work time. So I’m holding my thumbs so that I win at least one of the two big lottery winnings this weekend 🙂 🙂 🙂 The biggest one is around $ 130 million US and the smaller one around $ 8 million US. I will not complain if I would win the smaller one, after all I’m lot of things but I’m not greedy 🙂 🙂 🙂
They had decorated a tree like this in a small village where I had to change bus to get to my new car. It reminded me of something I’ve read about, that before we started to bring in the christmas trees like spruces and pines here in Sweden, sometimes they brought in young apple trees and decorated them and if the timing was right the young apple tree started to flower just around christmas.
So I’ve done all the important stuff today, I’ve made the christmas ham and at the same time I also put the prince sausages and meatballs in the oven together with the ham 🙂 I’ve eaten some of the Quality Street bonbons, I’ve watched the Donald Ducks christmas show and also fallen asleep a few minutes in to it. I did however just doze off for a few minutes so I watched most of it anyway 🙂 🙂 The birds did get more seeds than usual and we had a rather nice walk in the morning when the temperature was as low as -12C (10,4F). No wind and sunshine made it really nice even though I couldn’t feel any warmth from the sun what so ever.
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It wont look this wintery for long though, it will start raining already tonight and the temperatures are now slowly move above 0C (32F). It’s snowing at the moment, tiny flakes and I guess that if they’re guessing it right we’ll have very little snow tomorrow. It will rain even more tomorrow but it will unfortunately be sunny on Boxing day. I write unfortunately because the hunters will be out and they’ll hunt for hare and fox. I wished them good luck with the hares but they already know that we truly and deeply dislikes them for hunting fox here. We need them to keep the ammount of rodents down, these mild winters have really suited the rodents, so everyone in this part of the village hates when they hunt for fox.
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I was going to bake gingerbreads but didn’t have any energy to do it but over here we say that christmas lasts till easter so I have plenty of time to do that 🙂 🙂 I did however defrost the freezer yesterday. It was cold enough outdoors so it was the time to do it if I ever was going to. I must admit that i didn’t realize how much ice there was in there 🙂 🙂 🙂 It took well over five hours even if I had placed a bowl with boiling water in there and even though there is a shallow sort of gutter at the bottom of the freezer that is supposed to lead the water in one direction out to bowl collecting it, it really doesn’t 🙂 🙂 so now the floor around it is nice and clean as well 🙂 🙂
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This morning when I was about to put everything back in the freezer I also looked if anything in there contained gluten, so now my freezer is quite empty 🙂 🙂 🙂 Only the things I’ve made myself were gluten free. The reason I did that (because I’m pretty sure I would have forgotten normally) is because I bought a Julmust with orange flavor. I was talking with one of the owners of the grocery store I buy my food from because they were offering taste samples of bread with something on and I said I couldn’t eat it. So then they said that at least I could drink the Julmust. Turns out they were pretty wrong about that 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did wonder why my stomach suddenly gave up now when I’ve been so careful with having nothing with gluten. So I checked the internet and voila, the Julmust contains gluten.
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Most other, if not all, Julmust only have the flavoring of malt and not the real thing so it was an honest mistake but I will inform them about it. There’s nothing more I’ll do today than watch the British crime drama “Vera” and perhaps a program about the smaller wild cats we have around the world. I’ve watched it before and to be honest, those small wild cat species are really much more interesting than the bigger ones, perhaps because we always almost only see programs about the big ones. Tomorrow starts the time of leftovers, sandwiches with ham, sausages and meatballs. I’ll make them a bit more fun by adding blue cheese as well 🙂
Taken through my kitchen window, these birds truly loves peanuts 🙂..
I had planned to do so much today but the slightly stressful character of this last week has caught up with me 🙂 🙂 🙂 Plus I think I’ve gotten a cold because last night I woke up freezing something terrible even though I had three radiators sleeping beside me in the bed 🙂 🙂 It should have been impossible to freeze so my guess is a cold and that could also be why I’ve been so tried today. We have however had our pancake Saturday today so at least I’ve been doing something.
.The haunted tree looks like it is freezing 🙂.
We’ve had sunshine all day today and it has also been nasty cold. When the dogs have gone outsider it hasn’t taken long before they’ve wanted to go in again. The small birds have eaten much more seeds and peanuts now when it is colder as well. It does look pretty though even though I’d rather seen this cold world on a post card. I thought that the snow would be rather icy since it rained a lot before it went cold, instead it’s really fluffy and hard to walk in. Also Albins feet tend to freeze when we have this weather so every now and again we’ve stopped so that I could get the snow out from between his toes 🙂
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It’s so cold outdoors now that I’ve decided to defrost my freezer, it bis unfortunately not one of those that does it itself and it really was time to so so now. That means I’ll have to go outside with the dogs while my food still is out in the cold night, we have a clear sky showing the half moon really good. I do hope the fox stays away, I’ve never caught it with a camera on that side of the cottage but who says that will be the rule for all times 🙂
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I had planned to make gingerbreads today but instead I’ll decorate the christmas tree. For a while I thought that I would just have the light there but a few decorations is sort of needed even though the red, blue and yellow lights make it beautiful enough when the room is dark.
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It will start to rain tomorrow evening and on christmas day it’ll start getting cold again. I’m very glad that I don’t have to drive anywhere in the near future, the roads will be dangerous and people will not drive as careful as they need to. Lots of people have already slid of the roads while they were driving in the remnants of the snow storm that just had passed here and I guess will do the same when they’re on the way home again. After that it will be cold at nights but above freezing during the days. Well as long as we have daylight at least, days are short this time of year but it has finally turned and for every day that pass they’ll have bit more daylight 🙂
-10C (14F) here last night but despite it being well below 0C (32F) all day it still was a pretty nice day. The sun was even so warm that all snow on the south side of the cottage roof melted away. It was the lack of wind that did the trick.
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I haven’t done a single thing of what I usually do on Sundays. No dinner for next week, no laundry done and no vacuuming either which is really needed now. Then again the dirt won’t go away and now when it is as cold as it is none of us will bring in any more dirt anyway. The only good thing with these temperatures, even the dust has frozen to the ground 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I have done rice porridge but I forgot to start it in the early morning, I did it however early enough so that I could have some after a later walk 🙂 I was thinking, for a second, that I should decorate the tree as well but I’ll wait with that because the tree is nice enough with only the lights shining in it. The advent candlestick will have to wait since the snow covers all moss and lichens I would be able to find if there wasn’t any snow on the ground. The sad thing is that we’ll get more snow later next week so it’ll be even harder to find anything.
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I better go down and launder at least some t-shirts so I have anything to wear at work. I have enough of the rest to last at least until Thursday 🙂
Today has been sunny!! I can’t remember when that happened the last time. It didn’t look that we were going to have any sunshine when I woke up though but in only a few seconds all clouds went away and the sun appeared. I should have understood that we also had a rather strong wind blowing since the clouds moved away so fast. So even if i really enjoyed the sunshine it would have been so much nicer if we hadn’t had that wind. It also comes from the only direction where it can hit my cottage, so the kitchen and the room above are pretty cold but the rooms on the other sides are quite warm and comfortable 🙂
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I was quite busy the first half of the day. We went out for our morning walk as soon as we all had woken up. After that we had our breakfast and then I drove to the grocery store in Gudhem to pick up a package. I stopped on my way back at the Abbey ruin, the wind was nasty and bitterly cold up there. As soon as I came home we went out for another walk out to the bog, Nova wanted to walk there and I liked it because the wind wasn’t that bad in there in the forest. I’m pretty sure we had a wolf nearby because suddenly Alma started to behave, Albin looked concerned and Nova was in a hurry to get back home. As always I never saw one though.
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I put some french fries and two wiener sausages in the oven when I came back home and after eating that (the dogs got their share of fries 🙂 🙂 ) I took a long nap in the recliner with an around 60 pond pitbull sleeping on my chest and stomach. I couldn’t feel my legs when I finally woke up after a couple of hours 🙂 🙂 I slept for too long because I’m still rather tired. I’ll make a pot of tea after this, with my working hours I really don’t have to worry about not falling asleep early in the evening 🙂 🙂 🙂 and after I get the new ones I definitely won’t have to worry about that 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I would love to have some cookies right now but I don’t have any so I might bake some or a sponge-cake, I made a sponge-cake a week ago and even though it takes much longer to make a gluten free one in the oven it turned out really well. I had cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom as spices in it and yes I did get christmas feelings 🙂 🙂  🙂
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Cottage by the crane lake. 